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GALLERY: SXSW 2015

See performance shots of AWOLNATION, Courtney Barnett, Elder, Future Islands, Portugal. The Man, Nikki Lane, and more!

Multi-instrumentalist Vince Dewald started The Stone Foxes’ show on bass with his short-scale SG bass that he loves because of its “dark-but-punchy sound that has a blues gut and some high end definition.” He even took a stab at singing and guitar when he picked up an Olympic white American Standard Strat halfway through their jam session before going back to bass.

2015 marks South by Southwest’s 28th year as a destination festival in Austin’s beautiful neighborhoods like South Congress, East Austin, and downtown along 5th and 6th Streets. Since its inception, SXSW has tried to serve all music fans with a healthy dose of underground and unsigned acts representing nearly every musical genre imaginable. This year was no different with over 2,200 acts that descended upon the Lone Star State’s capital for five days and nights. Premier Guitar had boots on the ground and here is a fraction of the guitar-centric highlights from the event.

Though Lou Reed seemed to only use a handful of chords, his shrewd right-hand strumming created limitless rhythmic variations.

Beginner to Intermediate

Beginner to Intermediate

  • Focus on syncopation.
  • Add muted strums to enhance your rhythm playing.
  • Learn how to modify complex rhythmic patterns into smaller, more comprehensible figures.

Though usually more lauded for his lyrics than his guitar playing, Lou Reed had a distinctive style of strumming that can make replication a challenge and seemingly impossible for beginners to comprehend. With a combination of syncopations and muted strums, Reed’s rhythm guitar—from his time with the Velvet Underground to his solo career—has a groove and feel that all guitar players can learn from.

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Nashville luthier and guitar tech Dave Johnson shows us the baker's dozen of tools he thinks any guitar picker requires to be a guitar fixer.

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Paul Reed Smith cradles one of his company’s Charcoal Phoenix limited-edition guitars in front of a PRS Sonzera amp.

The storied guitar builder reflects on his dozen months sharing his experience, knowledge, and perspective with PG’s readers.

Over the past year, I’ve written a series of articles in Premier Guitar going over some of my, and our industry’s, views of guitar making. You can find all of them all online (and for those reading this online, the articles are collected here). What I am going to attempt to do for this final piece is boil down each of these articles to a “sort of” conclusion. I have enjoyed the process of writing and editing each one. For the most part, it’s been a lot of fun. So:

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Kemper updated the entire product range introducing the all-new Kemper Profiler MK 2 Series. More Power. More Flexibility.

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